Moral Agency in Humans. Agency, Change & The New Year.
The Importance of Moral Agency:
Moral agency is important because it requires the agent to use intentionality/unintentionality to enact change through their will. Our moral agency is what makes it possible to even discuss ethics by giving us the tools to reason morally. While some philosophers believe humans to be the only species with an inner life worthy of coining the term agency towards: I think these philosophers are undermining the inner life of other animals and other species as a whole. However, one thing most of us can agree on is that human beings as a moral agent means we can control our impact towards the world in some manner. And in turn shows the importance of ethics (our moral agency) and philosophy of action towards our more metaphysical worldviews and how we feel about our place in this world.
How Moral Agency Works:
Moral Agency works by declaring that any moral agent has free will and is responsible for his/her actions. Which means that any moral agent myself included has the tools and resources to discern between right and wrong. Moral agency works by teaching moral agents how we should treat other agents and beings of moral worth. This makes moral accountability a collective action amongst all moral agents.
Moral Agency and New Year Resolutions:
With the new year approaching lots of people are setting new year resolutions. Maybe you're trying to be a kinder person or get into better shape. Whatever your personal goals are there's a good chance one or two things have been on your resolutions list for a few years. Now I'm not here to point fingers because even I have some resolutions that have been on my list for consecutive years. But if you subscribe to the view that we are indeed moral agents with free will then there's only one person we can deem responsible for the reaching of your goals, that’s yourself. This can be a scary thought to think about if you're younger because the world is a tough place to survive in with lots of external factors affecting your circumstances, but it can be just as comforting knowing that you can leave your imprint on the world with the reaching of your goals or the not reaching of your goals. It's completely up to you to decide since we are moral agents who are responsible for our actions. Maybe with 2023 around the corner this can give you a boost of motivation to get out there and keep reaching for the things that are important to you because only you are to blame for any regrets you may have in your limited time on this earth.
Conclusion:
Moral agency is crucial to what it means to be human. It shows us as a collective how we should lead moral lives and how we can affect all moral being's agents or not positively or negatively. It's important to the making of our ethical agenda and sets the standard we should live by morally and how we can improve on this standard.